


Before You Go...

by Jenni_Snake



Category: Big Bang Theory
Genre: Episode Related, Fix-It, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Thanksgiving, The Pirate Solution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-20
Updated: 2012-08-20
Packaged: 2017-11-12 13:18:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/491453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenni_Snake/pseuds/Jenni_Snake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Howard can't believe that Raj could be deported, and can't quite figure out how to get him to stay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before You Go...

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for, dialogue from, and fix-it for 3x04 _The Pirate Solution_.

For Howard, Thanksgiving was a holiday to be gotten through rather than enjoyed. He didn’t like to think about it, and he didn’t really think about it unless someone else brought it up. And people only usually brought it up when they were extending an invitation. Which he would have to refuse. 

“Yeah, I really wish I could, Penny,” he said with a sick feeling in his stomach, “but every year my mother has all the relatives over and cooks up her famous turbriskgefil..."

"Turbriskgefil?" Penny asked.

“Turkey stuffed with a brisket stuffed with gefilte fish,” he said, watching Penny’s expression turn from astonishment to disgust. For a brief moment the words had no meaning to him, and instead he imagined a double-stuffed holiday treat that had everyone going back for thirds. For good measure, he assured Penny: “It’s not as good as it sounds.”

Penny looked like she didn’t doubt that for a moment. She turned to Raj, though Howard didn’t know why, since he’d just end up having to answer for him.

“Raj, what about you?”

“Oh,” Howard said, stepping in without a pause, “he usually comes to my house. Right, pal?”

As much as he hated Thanksgiving, having Raj there made it tolerable. Raj was like family - more than family. So it confused Howard when Raj burst into tears and ran out of the living room.

“All right, this year you don’t have to eat the turbriskgefil!” he called after him, then turned back apologetically to everyone else, explaining: “I don’t even chew it; I swallow it like pills.”

Sometimes Howard shocked himself with his own badly-timed comments. After an awkward moment of everyone staring at him like the jerk he appeared to be, he jumped out of his seat and followed Raj down the hallway.

There he found him sitting on the edge of Leonard’s bed wiping his eyes and trying to look presentable while still looking miserable. Without Howard even needing to ask he said:

“I’m going to be deported.”

Howard’s heart fell through his chest and his jaw nearly hit the ground. It couldn’t be, it couldn’t happen. He pushed himself to imagine no one in front of him, Raj gone, his own life... empty. It didn’t work. There was no way he could imagine anything without Raj - sitting down to a horrible lunch at the cafeteria, having him in the next seat in a darkened movie theatre, sitting thigh to thigh on video game nights, hoping he didn’t mind and wouldn’t move, feeling his inadvertent embrace the rare time he deigned to let Howard take him anywhere on his Vespa...

“You can’t go!” Howard said. “You can’t leave me!”

At least, that was what he thought he had said. Raj was staring at him indignantly.

“Well?” he asked. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

Howard blushed. He hadn’t said it. Raj was still here. He couldn’t think of anything. All that came out was:

“So... this isn’t about Thanksgiving?”

When he finally managed to move, Howard stumbled back out into the living room.

“So, what’s going on with Raj?” Leonard asked.

Again, Howard’s brain managed nothing but the stupidest of answers.

“Well, the good news is, he has no problem with my mother’s turbriskgefil...”

*

It had been a week, and Raj had already had one job interview. Unfortunately, it hadn’t gone as planned. They all sat in Leonard and Sheldon’s apartment again, commiserating.

“What do you mean you didn’t get the job? How could you not get it?” Howard asked, incredulous. Of all people qualified to work in stellar evolution, Raj had to have been at the top of the list.

“You know, he’s British, I’m Indian, ever since Gandhi they haven’t liked us very much,” Raj moaned.

Despite Leonard’s insinuation that the issue had been racially motivated, Raj quietly let them know it was more a matter of sexism. On his part. He couldn’t help being unable to speak to women sober, as much as he couldn’t help being a jerk when intoxicated.

Howard hardly heard anything of the conversation except that Raj was now surely going to be deported, was going to leave and never come back, and nothing was ever going to be the same, let alone happen between them, ever.

“I’m really going to miss you,” he blurted out, and then wondered if it sounded too forward, too pathetic.

“Will you come visit me in India?” Raj asked.

“Gee,” said Howard, trying to play down any desperation, “that’s, like, a 17-hour flight. How about I meet you halfway?”

“Halfway is 600 miles off the coast of Japan,” Raj reminded him.

“Tell you what, we’ll Skype.”

What an idiot! Howard thought to himself, biting his tongue for such an insensitive comment. This wasn't going as planned, but then again, it wasn't Raj he had to convince to stay, it was the INS. For a moment he seriously considered throwing himself at the feet of some processing agent and offering to let them have their way with him as long as it meant Raj could stay. Reality set in, and more depression along with it, when he realized they probably wouldn't think it was such a desirable offer.

Howard made himself focus on the conversation again. Sheldon had offered Raj a job, with only one catch - Raj was to be his subordinate, not his equal. The suggestion had made Raj bristle, but all he had told Sheldon was that he'd 'think about it.'

"I can't believe it! Work for him!" Raj exploded once he and Howard were out in the stairwell. "Like I'm some sort of graduate student desperate for a job."

"You are desperate for a job," Howard said, unthinkingly, as they started down the stairs.

“Thanks for reminding me, Howard,” Raj snapped.

Howard felt that he was displaying much more distress about the whole situation than Raj. It was imperative that he convince him to stay at any cost, and Howard swore to himself that, if Raj stayed, he would tell him what he was thinking and feeling every moment of every day.

"This is unbelievable!" Raj continued as he clomped down the stairs. "It's that sort of thing that makes me think I might as well just pack up and leave. Nobody wants me here."

"No!" Howard shouted, surprising Raj even more by stopping in front of him on the landing. "I want you here!"

“Give me one good reason why I should stay and work for Sheldon.”

“Okay,” Howard breathed, bracing himself for the moment of truth. He pressed Raj to the wall and pressed their mouths together. Standing on his toes, hands in Raj’s hair, it was perfect and deep and arousing and he tingled through his toes and his groin and his fingertips. He kissed him to tell him to stay.

At least, it seemed like he had. Apparently he had not. Raj sighed and shook his head.

“See, you can't even think of one reason.”

They walked down the rest of the stairs in silence, Howard willing Raj to read his mind, and failing.

*

The next day Howard fell through Raj’s apartment door. He’d taken the stairs two by two, worried that Raj was drowning in his own apartment. Instead, he was standing with his back to the kitchen sink, arms crossed over his chest, frowning.

“I came as soon as I could,” Howard panted.

“Dude, I texted you like half an hour ago.”

“I was at work!”

“Work's more important?” he asked petulantly.

“Look, just because you're unemployed...” Howard muttered out of frustration, then tried to pull his foot out of his mouth: “Sorry...”

“No, you're right,” Raj said, throwing his hands in the air. “I'm just so bored! I shouldn't take it out on you. We're fighting like an old married couple!”

Howard swallowed and pretended not to hear.

“So, uh, what’s wrong with the sink?”

“It’s leaking.”

“And you thought it was going to flood?”

“I put a bucket down there, it's going to overflow.”

Howard kneeled down, moving some bottles out of the way.

“It's a bowl,” he called from the cupboard. “And it's half full.”

“So?”

Howard groaned as he pulled himself out from under the sink and sat on his feet.

“Well, you’re good. As long as you’re okay without any hot water for a while.”

“What?”

“I’m not a plumber - all I did was turn the hot water valve off. You need to get someone in to fix the rest.”

"Oh. Well, while you're down there..."

Howard looked up at Raj, who grinned. When he raised an eyebrow, Raj just smiled. When Howard undid the button on his jeans, Raj gasped. When he took him into his mouth, he moaned. Raj's hands were gentle in his hair.

"Howard..."

Hearing his name said so seductively made him press in more determinedly.

"Howard!" Raj snapped, and Howard came back to reality.

"While you're down there, Raj repeated, "can you turn the cold water on? Priya shut it off to get back at me for something and I don't know how to turn it back on.

Howard sighed inwardly but rushed back under the sink to hide the red that had risen to his cheeks.

*

The situation was going from bad to worse. Raj had outright refused Sheldon’s offer despite everyone’s attempt to convince him that Sheldon wouldn’t be that hard to work with... even if none of them believed it for a minute. Howard was running out of ideas and spent every moment panicking.

“Oh god!” Raj wailed, dragging out the last syllable, “I’ll have to marry Penny...”

“No!” Howard jumped in without a thought: “Marry me instead!”

Almost before the last sound escape from his lips he clamped his hands over his mouth. His heart pounded a hectic rhythm trying to escape his chest. He had finally said something, not just imagined that he had said it, and he was terrified.

Then Raj smiled. Happily, not laughing - no, he was laughing, but not laughing at the idea: there were tears in his eyes and he covered his mouth and his eyes glittered. He took Howard’s hands into his own.

“You’re not joking?”

“Nuh-uh,” was the only thing he could say. It seemed to be enough for Raj who drew their hands in closer to his heart.

“So that’s all it took for this to finally happen - me getting deported?”

“I don’t know how I’d live without you.”

Neither of them could find any more words to say, so they held each other instead.


End file.
